short-story A good short story is perhaps as close to perfect as writing can get - with not a sentence to waste or a word to spare. And what better way to bracket your day (especially in this digital day and age) than with these - the best short fiction collections as chosen by Readings bookseller Alec Patric.

silence Silence
Rodney Hall
A giant of Australian letters focuses his genius into the newest of forms – flash fiction. Each piece is an ingenious creation, made in collaboration with James Joyce, Samuel Beckett, Henry James and other ‘silent’ partners.

thoughtcrimes Thought Crimes
Tim Richards
Australia doesn’t have a more courageous writer. Richards pushes the short form as far as it will go and finds new ways to appal and amaze, disturb and delight.

shaprd You Think That’s Bad
Jim Shepard
If I define these diverse stories as carefully researched historical novels cut down to the most essential details, you will not have a sense of the beauty of these exquisitely shaped Bonsai forms. Let me assure you, Shepard is a masterful maker of living things reaching for perfection.

stevem We Others: New and Selected Stories
Steven Millhauser
This Pulitzer Prize-winning author continues to be the most unrestricted of writers, displaying dimension and integrity through believable characters in compelling narratives that defy genres. This collection presents his latest with his finest work.

angeles The Angel Esmeralda (released on Dec 1)
Don DeLillo
This is not just a bunch of stories taken from the last few years of one of the great modern writers, this is nine stories cherry-picked from the entire career of Don DeLillo.

lydiadavis The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis
Lydia Davis
That term ‘short story’ sometimes gets radically redefined – what it means and what is still possible. Davis cracks open words like ‘fiction’ and out spills new DNA. These are stories that extract fresh life from the ground ordinary sentences grow from.

beattie The New Yorker Stories
Ann Beattie
The New Yorker has always been at the core of modern short fiction. This collection brings together 48 Beattie stories published over four decades in the world’s preeminent literary journal. Ann Beattie is the colossus of minimalism. Beyond her immense reputation, she really is one of the finest, sharpest writers about the everyday – in all its delightful, troubling complexity.

bestamericanstories The Best American Stories 2011
Geraldine Brooks (ed)
Year after year, the guest editor of Best American Stories brings a particular aesthetic, and Brooks uses her surefooted Australian sensibility along with a well-travelled world perspective to curate an exhibition of modern virtuosity.

bestaus10yr The Best Australian Stories - A Ten-Year Collection
Best of the best! Does anything more need to be said? (Perhaps it’s foolish to pick out just one, but for what it’s worth, Gerald Murnane’s masterpiece makes it onto my top 10 all-time best stories.)





Other 'best of 2011' lists:


AlecPatric Alec Patric is the author of The Rattler & other stories. He is the winner of the Ned Kelly (2011) SD Harvey Short Story Award. The Best Australian Stories 2010 featured his work and he has also been published in Overland, Southerly, Wet Ink, Quadrant, Etchings and other literary journals.